"What
thou seest write in a book and send it to the seven
churches, unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto
Pergamum, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto
Philadelphia and unto Laodicea." Revelation 1:11.

"To
the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These things
saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand,
he that walketh in the midst of the seven golden
lampstands: I know thy works, and thy toil and patience,
and that thou canst not bear evil men, and didst try them
which call themselves apostles, and they are not, and
didst find them false; and thou hast patience and didst
bear for my name's sake, and hast not grown weary. But I
have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first
love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and
repent and do the first works; or else I will come to
thee, and will move thy lampstand out of its place,
except thou repent. But this thou hast, that thou hatest
the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He that
hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the
churches. To him that overcometh, to him will I give to
eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of
God." Revelation 2:1-7.

We have
been led at this time to be occupied with revelation or
the unveiling of Jesus Christ. We began by taking note of
the fact that this book which has that as its title and
which has that as its very comprehensive content, is the
book which reveals Him inclusively, comprehensively as
coming forth at last to settle all those issues which
have been underlying the spiritual conflict of this
universe. All through the ages there has been a mighty
conflict in process. This earth has felt its
repercussions; all that has been taking place here has
been related to a great conflict in the heavens. And the
issue which has been in all that long, drawn out and many
sided conflict is none other than the issue of God's
intention as to the government of this earth from heaven.
His purpose, in the first place, concerning His Son as
the appointed Lord of lords, King of kings, supreme Ruler
in heaven and earth. And in the second place, the
eternally chosen or elected vehicle of that government,
what we now know as the Church. These two things as two
parts of One have been back of, and the occasion of, all
this tremendous swirl and welter of conflict through the
ages. And this book is the revelation of Jesus Christ
coming out to settle that issue once and for all and
finally. And in this book we see the processes of that
settlement - how it is headed up, in different
connections and relationships - a steady, progressive
movement until at last... the kingdoms of this world are
the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. The issue is
settled and He is established with His Church as forever
in an unchallengeable supremacy. Well, that is the
revelation of Jesus Christ in very few words.

In our
former three sessions we have been considering the
introduction to that. First, in noting how everything in
this book is consummatory. It gathers up everything from
the beginning of the Bible all the way through. In its
some four hundred allusions to the Old Testament, it is
very comprehensive and quite clearly it is the bringing
of all that to consummation. And then we went on to
contemplate the two aspects of the Lord Jesus as
presented in chapter one, as foundational to all that is
to follow. First of all, His personal victory: "I am
He that liveth, I became dead, behold I am alive unto the
ages of the ages, I have the keys of death and of
Hades." His victory... And we spent quite a lot of
time seeing what that victory was and how it was. And
then we went to the second aspect of this foundation: His
person, that is His character. This matchless description
of Himself which we have in chapter one... and we saw
that it is upon the basis not only of what He has done,
but of what He is in His intrinsic character, nature and
worth that He has the right to decide anything - to judge
either Church or nations or the devil himself. His
authority is based upon what He is, His real character.
And that is always a law with God; the power rests upon
what a person is more than what a person does. With God
the matter of authority, of dominion, of government, or
of any kind of trust or responsibility, always depends
upon the character of the person or the persons in view.
With the Lord Jesus that is perfectly evident that He
triumphed because of what He was. And therefore He is in
the right of judgment of all others because no one can
ever point at anything in Him that Satan could encamp
upon and say, 'That's a contradiction'.

Well,
again, we spent a long session on the character of the
Lord Jesus and the challenge of that character to
everything. But when we have said all that we can say,
and a great deal more could be said about chapter one;
all that is but preparatory to what follows. It is as
though the Spirit of God had laid down a foundation for
everything now that is going to transpire. As though He
had said, "Now this is our ground for everything and
of everything; it is upon that and from that that we move
to everything else".

You notice
that the first movement of the Spirit, here described
symbolically as the seven spirits of God (the meaning for
that which we may consider at some time) is the Holy
Spirit undoubtedly in sevenfold expression. It is the
Holy Spirit moving in the first place toward the Church,
to deal with the Church inclusively and comprehensively
upon the basis that He Himself has laid down. That is a
thing that we must bear in mind and which will become
more and more apparent as we go on.

Now, if
chapters two and three - which contain this first
movement to the Church - if these chapters have any
relation to our own time, then, dear friends, surely with
them we are in the presence of the most solemn and the
most momentous issues. What is taken up in the first
place where the Church is concerned is nothing less than
the very testimony of Jesus Himself in this universe. The
Testimony of Jesus... that IS the supreme and the
ultimate thing for all history and for all realms. We've
seen what that testimony is - the absolute Lordship of
Jesus Christ in every realm. That is the Testimony of
Jesus. And that matter is the first thing that governs
the Spirit in moving toward the Church. We see that more
fully as we go on. Then of course there follows quite
clearly by the patent conclusion that has to be drawn,
the Church's responsibility for that Testimony. It is not
some thing that is detached and unrelated, abstract and
apart in itself. The Church was chosen in Christ Jesus
before the foundation of the world to be the vessel and
the vehicle of the Testimony of Jesus. And so, what is
here in the second place is the great and honourable
responsibility of the Church in relation to the greatest
issue in this universe; the divinely appointed place for
Jesus Christ in the whole system of things. And these two
things lead on, as is made perfectly clear, to the
ultimate government of the world FROM heaven, BY
Christ, THROUGH the Church. Those three things
are not small things. If that is what is here, then I am
justified in saying that when we begin with this first
movement of the Spirit to the Church, we are faced with
the most solemn and momentous matters. And taking it (and
with all our human insignificance, smallness and
weakness, all that we would not be and are not that we
would be, we are a few of the Church, therefore we must
not think too objectively at this time) but when it says
"the Spirit saith to the churches", the Spirit
is speaking to us here in this place concerning these
very matters in this time.

Well, what
is here then, is for the enlightenment of the Church as
to the meaning of things that happen. Dear friends,
things are happening. And things are going to happen.
That is what it says right at the beginning. Things are
happening and things are going to happen, we are in the
midst of these happenings now. There are movements of
tremendous significance, very portentous in this creation
with an impact of spiritual forces upon this earth, and a
lot of things are happening and a lot of developments are
in process. We shall see more and more of these things
happening. The important thing is that we understand the MEANING
of these happenings.

It is a
tremendous thing to understand what is happening to us,
conscious that things are happening to us, they are
happening to us spiritually, in our own spiritual
experience and life; conscious of being taken into and
through things that are difficult to bear and to
understand. We don't know what is it that's happening to
us; why are we involved in this... this stress, this
pressure, this strain, this tension, this conflict? If we
are really God's people going on with God, putting Christ
in His place, we're involved in something; every one of
us personally. It strikes upon us individually in some
way or ways. It strikes upon every relationship of our
lives, it strikes upon our families, and upon our homes,
upon our businesses, it strikes upon our relationships
with other believers, it strikes upon the whole question
of spiritual fellowship, it strikes upon the work of the
Lord, it strikes upon the local companies. Yes, things
are happening, it's like that, we're involved in
something.

There are
big spiritual movements afoot and I repeat it is of TREMENDOUS
importance that the people of God know the MEANING of
what is happening; WHY we are passing this way, WHAT
the Lord is trying to do with us, what the Lord MEANS
by what is taking place. Yes, it's tremendously important
that we have understanding of these things. These things
will happen. That is what is here in these messages. The
Lord is moving in, so to speak, and is bringing every
thing to some particular issue. That's a very impressive
thing you know, that the Lord seems to be concentrating
upon one specific issue!

I don't
know how you felt when I read again that first message to
the Church at Ephesus. I'll tell you how I have felt as I
have read it, I've read it: "I know thy works,
thy toil, thy toil and thy patience, that thou canst not
bear evil men, and didst try them which call themselves
apostles, and they are not, thou didst find them
false..." Remember this same writer John, who
had the responsibility in the church at Ephesus, had
written in his letter "beloved, try the spirits,
for there are many false prophets gone abroad".
Try them! They had done it. "Thou hast tried
them that call themselves apostles, and they are not,
thou didst find them false. Thou hast patience and didst
bear for My Name's sake and hast not grown weary..."
"What more do You want Lord? What more can You ask
for? If You want more than that, You're very exacting.
What can You expect of any people more than that, what
are You asking for?" Is that how you feel? You have
to react like that in order to get to the heart of
things. "All that Lord! All that! We've given You
all that, You've got all that, and that means a lot, you
know! It means a lot for any church in a day of
persecution especially, as in this case. You've got all
that; what more do You want, what more can You have? And
with all that, You come back and say, with all that, 'I'm
on the point of removing your lampstand out of its place,
there's something, with all that, which not being
present, does not justify My preserving you as a
vessel.'" That's terrible isn't it in one way?
That's searching, that would drive us to our knees. WHAT
IS IT, that with all that, is essential to our
continuation as a vessel of the Lord?

We'll have
to come back to that before we are finished. I say that
it's important that we understand why such people can be
dealt with by the Lord in condemnation, yes in
correction, with an effort by encouragement and
confirmation to get that something else; that essential.
Dear friends, there is one thing that surely is such a
contemplation and consideration will bring home to you
and to me: that is that the Lord is never satisfied with
the comparative. He must have the absolute. The Lord will
never ultimately, ultimately settle down to accept
something good, something good. He's going to have the
best. A church may be good in many respects, a group of
the Lord's people may have many commendable things, that
even the Lord commends, but in the final analysis, His
attitude is, "A good thing, with many good things is
not what I set out to have. At the beginning I set out to
have something not good, but the best. Not comparative,
but absolute. Not partial, but complete." That, I
say, is the conclusion to which we are driven if we read
this right; we have to decide that.

Now then,
here we have to answer one question; do these messages to
the seven churches in Asia have an application to the
Church today? Of course there are these schools of
interpretation to which I have referred earlier. I'll not
even mention their technical names, but there is the one
school that holds and concludes that what is here in this
book was confined to the time of its being written, it
was just a matter of contemporary history, it had only to
do solely with the churches in Asia as they were at that
time, and all this was contemporary history. Very well,
if so, it may be interesting to read it, to know what
happened and how things happened; but you don't get over
all your difficulties that way.

There is
the next school that interprets all this as having
commenced in apostolic times, in late apostolic times,
and been spread over to the time of the coming of the
Lord, that is, that all these seven churches are like
seven phases of history which fill up the big gap between
the two comings of the Lord. Alright, we are not going to
argue about that. And then there is the third school
which holds that it all belongs to the end, to the end of
the age and afterward, all this is going to come up as
the day of the Lord draws near and going to be all
cleared up and settled in the last phase of this age and
then what follows afterward.

I would say
here, that not by way of convenience or compromise, I'm
thinking that they all hold truth, they all hold truth
and they all hold error - or if that is too strong a word
- they all hold weaknesses and flaws. But I'm not going
to discuss them, that is not the point at all. What I'm
after is this: if this is the word of the Lord, if this
has come from God, if this is the word of the Holy
Spirit, you can confine it to no particular time. It
ranges ALL time in the principles which it
embodies.

You are not
dealing here finally and ultimately and conclusively with
anything that belongs to any one fragment of time. You're
dealing with the thoughts of God which govern ALL
times. And wherever and whenever you have those things
that are found in these churches which are condemned by
the Lord; at any time in history they're still condemned
- condemnation does not belong to any one place or one
time. They are principles of universal application. And
where you find, and whenever you find that which the Lord
here commends and is seeking to have, that is an eternal
something which compasses all time! And I hold that as
the answer to all interpretations; that we are not
dealing with mere history, and localities and phases in
time; we are dealing with eternal principles. And I am
certain that that is the sum of the significance of this
book. As we have pointed out, it goes RIGHT back to the
eternal counsels of God and what took place THEN and He
decided. And what has been disputed and challenged and
fought over through all the ages and now on the threshold
of the ages of the ages - it's THAT that is being settled
as much in Ephesus as anywhere else. And the same
everywhere else as in Ephesus. These are no issues for
some period or some place; we are in it as much as ever
Ephesus in apostolic times was in it. This is to us,
because the word of the Lord is forever! He speaks and
when He speaks He expresses an eternal mind and a
universal mind.

Well now,
this book clearly compasses all time - past, present and
what there remains of the future. And it does so in one
inclusive respect: this issue of the utterness, the
utterness - not the comparativeness, not the partialness
- the utterness of the place of the Lord Jesus. That's
the issue, and that was the issue for Ephesus, no doubt
about it. We'll see that as we look into this message.

You see, it
is the full revelation of Jesus. The FULL revelation of
Jesus. This is no partial revelation of Him, He's here in
fullness; and THAT'S the challenge. Churches, times, are
not being challenged on something about Jesus, some, even
true part of Jesus; the challenge is upon the fullness of
Christ, the FULLNESS of Christ - that's the issue. And
that is where we are in this book. And so I repeat for
you, certainly that this book holds principles for all
time.

Now then,
to Ephesus. He is heading up, we have said, to a final
conclusion all these outstanding questions and
controversies through the ages. He's heading them up at
last, saying "Now we are going to settle this and
settle it forever." And where does He begin? He
begins with the Church. Rightly so! It's in the right
order of God to begin this with the Church. He cannot
pass to the nations and call them to account until He has
dealt with the Church. He cannot even dispossess the evil
powers of their place and cast them out until He has
dealt with the Church. Tremendous principle involved in
that. Without giving mystical interpretation to this and
this is not my intention at all because I believe this is
historic and by descent, nevertheless the principle does
apply in this way; that you and I will never see the evil
powers and the evil one cast out of our realm while there
is something wrong with us before the Lord. Isn't it
true? If he has some rightful foothold in us; no hope of
his being cast out. You've got to take the ground from
him before you can do that. That is true in principle. In
dealing with any life where Satan has really got power,
you've got to get down to know WHY he has got the power
in that life, that there is something there that is of
himself. It's got to be removed before that life can be
saved. That is the meaning of our Lord's own words
"The prince of this world cometh to me and hath
nothing in me; hence the prince of this world is cast
out". See the basis. It's like that.

And that is
what is here: how can you deal with the world in judgment
or with the great kingdom of Satan which will be dealt
with in the third place, until the Church is put right?
Because presently it will be the accuser of the brethren
who is cast down, but that will not happen until the
ground of his accusation has been dealt with in the
brethren. You got that? His is not official power, his is
not just objective power, his is spiritual power. His
strength and his hold rests upon a condition, a
condition. "Simon, Simon, Satan hath obtained thee
by asking that he may sift thee as wheat but I have
prayed for thee, when thou art turned again strengthen
thy brethren..." WHY does Satan have his request
granted, to sift Simon Peter as wheat... and he did it,
mark you, he did it very thoroughly. Why? Because the
Lord saw there was something in Simon Peter that had got
to BE sifted that Satan had a right over. And so the Lord
dealt with that, and you have an authoritative Simon
Peter after that, a man in spiritual ascendency indeed,
who cares for neither men nor devils. That was not the
original Simon. You see the working of this law; power
rests upon character.

And so, if
the Church is God's eternally chosen vessel for the
administration of the kingdom of God by Jesus Christ,
it's got to come to a spiritual position which justifies
that government, that control. Hence the Lord MUST begin
with and be thorough and exact with the Church and not
just accept good things, but sift down and sift down. So
the ultimate issue is bound up with these messages, no
less an issue than that that we have called, dear
friends, we have called, (the wonder and amazement of it,
it has perhaps by familiarity lost some of its impress
upon us): called into fellowship with Jesus Christ to
take the place that the prince and principalities and
powers and world rulers of this darkness now hold. Not so
difficult to understand if you think about it... this
world is governed spiritually. No doubt about that. It's
a spiritual government that's behind all that's happening
here. Even men who make no profession whatever of being
spiritual, even in any particular sense Christian; never
give us anything to indicate that they are born again
people and know the Lord... nevertheless they see. They
see through, and they know that there are forces of evil
behind the movements in this world. They say, they speak
of it as "that evil thing, that evil thing";
they know. And so it is. Back of all this there is
spiritual government of this world, "the world
rulers of this darkness" what a rich full phrase
that is. Where's it coming from? Principalities and
powers and hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenlies.

The
ultimate vision of God's purpose realized is the Church
in the symbolic presentation of the new Jerusalem,
heavenly City, taking THAT place, occupying THAT place.
So difficult to move in our minds from a literal
symbolism to a spiritual meaning... That's what it means!
Church is a heavenly body, with a heavenly calling, to
occupy a heavenly position for heavenly government with
Christ in the ages to come. And if I have not misread my
Bible, that is what the Church is called to and that is
what we are called to. Now, you cannot have such a
calling and such a vocation, such a divine intention,
without the Lord being very exact. VERY exact! And, as I
say again, being unprepared to accept what is
comparative.

Well, here
we have the seven messages and I haven't got to Ephesus
yet. But here we have then the sevenfold symbolism and
representation and it's that we must note first of all.
Seven churches in Asia. Yes, but there were plenty MORE
churches in Asia besides these seven! All the churches in
Asia are not mentioned when you've mentioned these seven.
Are the others alright, they did not need to be
mentioned, nothing wrong with them, they're alright; is
that what it means? Why select these? Why select just
seven? Well, because seven is always a representative
number, that's all. Seven is the number which symbolizes
spiritual completeness. It represents spiritual
completeness or fullness. And so seven here selected are
just lifted out, so to speak, to be representative of all
others and the whole Church and what the Lord says to the
seven He says to the whole. It is here a representation
of the whole Church - that is all that is meant by
selecting seven - to embody a complete expression of
spiritual principles. Is that clear? If that is true,
then it's more than for Asia, it IS the whole Church and
what was in Asia, inside of Asia in these seven, is only
taken as a kind of sounding board or platform for the
Church universal and all time.

These are
united in the right hand of Him that walks up and down in
the midst of the golden lampstands. United in His right
hand, "Who holdeth in his right hand", you
notice "who HOLDETH in his right hand the
seven". Well, the right hand is another symbolic
idea, it's the place firstly of honour and then of
authority and then of strength. He holds... all there in
His right hand, in His authority, in His strength. The
word 'hold' as used here or 'holdeth' is a very strong
word in the Greek; different from other words which mean
just 'to have', here it's what we might call 'to have a
grip'; He's got a grip on this. He is in charge, in
possession. He has not let go what He intended here, He
is not regarding this loosely, carelessly, indifferently,
weakly. This whole matter of the Testimony of the Church
and the churches is with Him something very definite,
very positive, He holds in His right hand for His honour.

The golden
lampstands... the golden lampstands; that is essentially
a divine idea. And as we, I think, earlier said, gold in
the Old Testament is always the symbol of that which is
most precious amongst metals. You speak of gold there;
you always have the idea of value, of preciousness, of
something that counts. Here it's in the churches that
which is precious to Him. That which is precious to God.
That which is of intrinsic value. That which is
incorruptible. We've tried to set this forth in a fuller
way in a book, "The Gold of the Sanctuary" but
that is it. What is He after, what is His thought about
the Church and the churches, what is His thought about us
as companies of the Lord's people; what is it? His
thought is that there is where we are - or there ought to
be where we are - something of transcendent preciousness
to Himself and to the Father. Something of real value;
REAL value. It's that that He's after.

These
symbolic representations of lampstands of gold is simply
this - here and there in the intention of God shall be a
representation and an embodiment of that which is
supremely precious to God. If it's like that, if it's
like that, well of course that will explain a very great
deal why the enemy would like the fine gold to become
dim, why the tremendous conflict for the PURITY
of any corporate expression of the Church - its purity.
To corrupt, to corrupt - it's one of the things the Lord
is dealing with in the churches - to corrupt, to spoil
and mar the fine gold, to rob the Lord of the
preciousness. Oh, let us be very much given to this,
brethren and sisters; see to it that so far as we are
concerned, we take this responsibility. I am not one of
those who can conclude that the angels of the churches
are the single ministers of the church; I don't believe
that because it contradicts so much that is in the New
Testament. But I believe that the angel of the church is
simply the principle or the focal point of
responsibility. We are ALL responsible people in the
Church and we're all called to take responsibility for
the Church and so I say the Lord help us every one to
take responsibility where we are and where we are
concerned, to see that there is something precious for
the Lord, that our gatherings and our companies are not
just preaching places, teaching places with a lot of
truth and head knowledge of divine things... but really
in character there is something very precious to the Lord
- it could be said that there is something there that is
very precious to the Lord. If that were spoiled, if that
were lost, something of real value to the Lord would go.
It MUST be like that dear friends, very
practical, but you see this is what the Lord is after:
the intrinsic value, not the comparative value, not the
size of things at all, not what is external but the INTRINSIC
value, the gold... refined in the fire. That which is PRECIOUS
TO THE LORD.

Seven
golden lampstands. Lampstands, that is a better
translation than candlesticks because a candlestick burns
itself away or the candle burns itself away. The lamp, it
burns by a supply, an endless supply from outside of
itself. However, that by the way, the function of the
lampstand, that's the point; what is it? Of course,
obviously, it is LIGHT, by the Holy Spirit. Let's qualify
that. It is light, but it is light by the power, the
illumination, the energy, the resource of the Holy
Spirit. A Holy Spirit testimony in every place where
there is a company, small or large, of the Lord's people.
LIGHT in that place!

I cannot
emphasize the importance of this enough although it seems
SO obvious. But this ought to really concern our
hearts, really be a burden on our hearts, that where we
are, as the Lord's people together, however few, people
can see Christ. People can really SEE Christ
because we are there. Isn't that searching and
challenging... Just the matter of seeing the Lord Jesus.
I've seen a lot of people going to meetings in a certain
place, hearing them sing and wondering what's happening
amongst them, but you meet those people and you meet more
than those people. If you have any idea of God at all or
what God ought to be like, if you have any information as
to God's character and nature, you see it in those
people. You meet it with those people, you've got it
right in your very presence, that's where it is. That is
the essential function of the Lamp; it is not an
ornament, it is not a [code] to get something, it is not
a form and a shape; it's a living Life, a living History.
That is what the Church is here for and the churches are
but local representations of the Church. It is that
there, where the Lord's people are, that is where what is
Christ is found. Just what is Christ! Yes, these are the
seven golden lampstands.

I must stop
there I think, before we come to Ephesus after all, but
that is enough to search our hearts. It begins to show
us, it begins to lead us to this thing that the Lord
cannot do without, He cannot do without. With all the
works, the labour, the patience, and all the
conscientiousness, and integrity and all the hatred of
evil men, and all the testing of people's professions and
judging whether things are right and wrong, with all
that, there's some intrinsic value which is more than all
and without which the Lord cannot be satisfied and the
vessel is not justified in its continuing. Very solemn
thought, that is.

May the
Word this afternoon provoke us to this and I would close
here, this part, by saying again that as with Ephesus, so
with us all - there can be no substituting of something
good for the best. I'm sure that searches us here in this
place. There may be a lot of good things, we may be
wanting a lot of good things and doing a lot of good
things but remember there is a FULL thing for
which God brought us into being. A full thing for which
He brought us into being, and He will never, never allow
anything less than that to pass with Him. He'll hold to
that and ask: "Why did I bring you into being? This
or that, something else... quite good, yes, nothing wrong
with that at all... quite good, BUT... is that
all, IS that all?" That's His interrogation
here. "Repent and do the first works". And we
shall have more light on this as we actually look into
this message to the Church in Ephesus. The Lord hold our
hearts.